This commentary uses rabbinical literature to comment on the text of the New Testament, and to help modern readers understand the textual background from within the framework of Jewish literature. Lightfoot makes full use of Hebrew and Aramaic literature to provide thorough commentary on the New Testament. He uses Jewish sources to illuminate not only textual matters, but also the social and cultural context of the people, places, and events in the New Testament. This important work is meticulously written and has served as a model for synthesizing the New Testament with Jewish literature in the four centuries since its first publication. It covers the Gospels, Acts, portions of Romans, and 1 Corinthians.

First written in Latin, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica was first published between 1658 and 1674, and reprinted as a whole in 1675, 1686, and 1699. The first English translation was published anonymously in 1684. It was reprinted in 13 volumes between 1822 and 1825 by John Rogers Pitman—an edition popular in the middle part of the nineteenth century. By the 1850s, however, the Pitman edition was becoming “scarce and expensive,” and work on a new edition was begun. The resulting work was published in 1859 by Oxford University. It remains the standard translation of Lightfoot’s work to this day, and has been reprinted numerous times—most recently by Baker in 1979 and Hendrickson in 2004. This is also the edition which underlies the electronic edition we’re planning to begin working on in the near future.

If you’re interested in Jewish studies and Talmudic literature, or you simply want to add a fascinating commentary to your library, you need to act now. This commentary has generated enormous interest this past week, and the Pre-Pub price is going up soon. Place your pre-order today to show your support for the project!

I’m a coffee drinker, and perhaps, have a small-to-medium addiction to it. I make myself feel better by reading medical studies that highlight the fact that drinking coffee could lower my risk of diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, colon cancer, as well as lift my mood, treat headaches, and lower my risk of cavities. My personal issues aside, we drink a lot of coffee at Logos and 2009, with the launch of Logos 4, was no exception. So, with 2010 upon us, I thought we’d take a stroll down Logos’ coffee lane.
On June 21, 2004, Logos received its beloved Coffee Machine. To be precise, it is a Saeco Super Automatic IDEA De Luxe espresso machine. Since the initial purchase, this magnificent coffee making machine has made over 106,000 cups of coffee! That averages out to more than 73 cups of coffee EVERY WORK DAY!
As far as I can tell, our first public mention of the coffee machine was back in October, 2005, when, after almost a year and a half of service, the machine was taken in for repairs. According to the blog post, we had already consumed 20,000 cups of coffee. That’s about 57 cups per work day.
Since then we’ve blogged about it a few times, showing pictures of coffee and using it as an opportunity to sell Logos branded merchandise… which, by the way, how would you like to buy a very nice Logos glass coffee mug for just $6.95?
While the public blog didn’t cover much more about the coffee machine, I did come across an internal wiki that chronicles some of the machine’s past. It would appear that the time between its October 2005 fix and the next service was about 2 1/2 years. In April, 2008, we sent the coffee machine off for a number of issues that had sprung up, including a “loud noise, followed by clicking sounds,” “brownish water coming out of the steam wand,” “an error message which states: load circuit,” and several of other problems. Perhaps the problem was that we had now consumed 72,907 cups of coffee. That averages out to, over those 2.5 years, about 81 cups per work day.Later in 2008 the machine was again sent in for repairs. Despite the initial diagnosis that the turbine needed to be replaced, it was in fact a clogged brewer unit. In those brief 5 months we managed to drink another 7,842 cups of coffee, or about 71 cups per work day.
Which leads us to today. As we enter 2010, we have collectively consumed over 106,000 cups of coffee. That’s about 73 cups a day over the last 5 1/2 years and about 83 cups a day since October, 2008.
If you’re looking for something more inspiring than the history of our coffee machine, then I highly recommend you open Logos 4 (upgrade if you haven’t already) and get into God’s Word in 2010 and reflect on His goodness in the year ahead.
And, if you need a cup of coffee to sip during your study, we’ll be open until 5 p.m. PST. You’re welcome to stop by and add your cup to our running total.

All throughout Logos Bible Software 4 you’ll see a reference or passage box in which you can type a Bible reference to initiate a search or generate a report. Please remember you do not have to type out a full reference. Logos accepts most any abbreviation that is close to what you want. For example, observe the following time-saving shortcuts and find the style that works best for you:

In the picture here, you’ll see me standing next to four stacks of books. That’s 180 books to be exact. To help you gain a little perspective on how tall those stacks are, I’m 6’2″. Now, these stacks represent the number of new resources you get when you crossgrade from Scholar’s 3 to Scholar’s 4. As Phil pointed out yesterday, that crossgrade will only cost $127.50 (or even less*). Can you imagine walking into your neighborhood bookstore, carting all these books to the cash register, and saying, “I’ve only got $127.50. Will that be enough?”

Now, Phil’s post went on to explain that when you upgrade from Scholar’s 3 to Scholar’s Gold 4 you get more than 650 new resources for only $720 (or even less*). At the bookstore, that looks something like this:

While $720 is a bit of a price jump from $127.50, keep in mind that we’re talking about 650 resources. Not to mention that just one commentary set in the package (New American Commentary (37 Vols.)) would cost you nearly $720 all by itself… and you’ll be getting more than 600 more resources on top of this. What an amazing deal!

Then, there was Phil’s final comparison, upgrading from Scholar’s 3 to Scholar’s Platinum 4. In this upgrade you get nearly 950 new resources for only $907.54 (or even less*). That’s $.96 per volume and, in print, looks something like this:

If you haven’t upgraded yet, today’s a great day to do it! Simply visit www.logos.com/upgrade to see the custom upgrade price for you.

* Your upgrade price might be even lower based on several factors. Visit our customized upgrade discounter to see your low prices. Also, these pictures are representative and the stacks do not contain the exact titles included in the base package upgrades. At 180 books, we disrupted our electronic text development department enough just making the first stack. Also, in case you couldn’t tell, we had to photoshop the stacks for 650 and 950. While we certainly have enough books in the building, we really started to feel bad for being such a distraction and, honestly, we were pretty afraid of seeing 950 books accidentally fall over on the floor. So, we hope you “get the picture.”